Well, this month flew by, and with it did many opportunities to write the next update, that I did not take. Although this is our summer vacation from V-School, it seems we are busier now than before. The heat and humidity these days has been so unbearable, we finally turned on the air conditioning in the office of our apartment, which is where we now spend most of our days.
The Pied Exhaust Piper
These days there is no shortage of insects, particularly mosquitos, due to high humidity, rain and heat, so in response, the city provides a regular service of spraying bug smoke into the air from a truck that circles apartment buildings. This smoke truck also provides entertainment to the local children, who are often seen running and playing in droves closely behind it, as though following the pied piper. Will has often wanted to catch this sight on camera, but does not attempt it, as the children cannot be seen through the smoke.
Pregnancy
I am now in my 31st week, or 6 and a half month. It’s funny, in the first trimester I couldn’t wait to start showing. I wanted to really FEEL pregnant. Now I’m showing (with 2.5 months left of showing) and I’m ready to get this baby out. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy the kicks and swishes and somersaults, but I am SOO tired of the heartburn. And I’m all out of TUMS. That being said, I’ve had plenty of time to knit her up a wardrobe, one that will undoubtedly be ruined within a few months of being worn. Sometimes she is so active, my tummy looks like a wave pool. It’s pretty hard to concentrate during meetings when that happens.
From L to R: At 29 weeks; At 30 weeks; At 31 weeks
V-School Closing Worship and Other Things
The day of V-School Closing Worship was a crazy day. In the morning, one of the members of our church, who is a dentist, opened up a new office. So, a large group of church members met at his office to have a worship service, to sort of bless the new space. We, however, were unaware of the worship aspect (so didn’t bring our English/Korean hymnal) and were unaware that it was a dressy type of event. So…while all the men were in dress pants and button-up shirts, Will was in shorts and a T-shirt. While all the women were in dresses and heels, I was in my usual capris and sandals. This happens sometimes.
Then we were taken to a Japanese restaurant, and Will thought he’d be adventurous and put up his hand for an order that he knew nothing about. What he was served was a really spicy fish entrail soup, a soup with fish intestines, liver, kidneys, etc. floating around in it. I felt SO sorry for him. He was a real trooper and ate some of it. I wouldn’t have even done THAT much.
Then came the Worship Service to close the V-School term. Will did the sermon, which was on Solomon, then we made our presentations. Our students did a variety of things to show their parents what they learned this term: My guitar class played “Amazing Grace”, two of Will’s students pulled off Abbot and Costello’s “Who’s on First?” beautifully, the skits I wrote for my younger classes didn’t go quite as practiced…we forgot to show the slide show of fun pictures that we took of our students…and it went overtime. Having said that, the parents loved it.
From L to R: Will’s sermon; My class doing their skit; Will describing what he taught; Will’s class doing their skit; My guitar class; Will’s students doing “Who’s on first?”
Worship Leading
I was put on the schedule to worship lead, and had everything planned, except forgot to find a translator. Whoops! I blame my absent-mindedness on my pregnancy. As usual, someone was willing to help in a snap. I decided to teach an English song, “If you believe and I believe”, but had it translated first. In the process of writing out the Korean words into the music I made a significant typo. The Korean word for “believe” in the song is “믿고” (Mitgo), but I accidentally wrote “맏고” (Matgo), which means “to hit”. OOPS. People generously went along singing without embarrassing me, and I was quietly told later.
Essay and Guitar Lessons
As we have a little free time and some skills to offer, we have been asked by church members to help certain people with certain things. For 3 weeks this month we helped a boy with essay writing, giving him assignments like writing about the Johnny Cash song “Ring of Fire”, about the poem “The Cremation of Sam McGee”, about a short fairy tale story, and movie comparisons. It was actually quite fun thinking of assignments and seeing his improvement on a weekly basis. I was also asked to teach a girl guitar, who’s going through a rough time in her life right now. She’s a keen student, and I think she may get somewhere in the few lessons we’ll have.
Weekend with Friends
One weekend we were blessed to be visited by a whole troupe of friends from Seoul, who came here to climb the biggest mountain in Chuncheon, Samaksan. We hosted 5 of the group, and stayed up late in good conversation and watching familiar sitcoms. Luckily for me, not everyone wanted to climb the mountain, so while half the group did that, the other half stayed with me. We met the climbers at the bottom, where there is a market, a wonderful rock canyon and waterfalls to see.
From L to R: The mountain climbers at the start; Temple along the way; The group at the top; Waterfall on the way down; The whole gang together at the bottom; Sitting with some friends over drinks; At Samaksan with our friends; Will and friends cooling off in the water
End of Term Knitting Club Party
Since it is the summer time, and harder for the ladies to spare their mornings, because their children are home, we decided to take a break until September. The knitting club has continued successfully for at least 5 months, so that’s cause for celebration. One of the ladies made reservations at a neat restaurant out of town, and part of the restaurant service was to send a van to pick us up and take us there! What a neat concept! This restaurant was in the country, where they had cute little gazebos along a river stream, where you sit to eat, and they grow their own lettuce which they serve with the meals. There was a chair in the river, inviting us to wade in the cool mountain water and take a seat. It was a lovely way to end our “semester”. However, September may bring a new name to the knitting club. The ladies have made it clear they would rather move on to learning guitar instead of knitting, but still want the cooking. So it may be referred to in the future as “Guitar/Cooking Club”.
From L to R: Ana wading in the cool river; The whole group, plus some friends; The tables; The garden; The duck before; The duck after; The group eating
Jesus Abbey
As we had intended for the past few months, Will and I finally made it back to Jesus Abbey for a few days (that is the spiritual retreat place in Taebaek that we went to in January). To ensure a stress-free drive, we borrowed someone’s GPS. It was fun to have that beeping machine in our car, telling us where to go, where the speed camera’s are, and when we were going the wrong way. It’s very easy to put much faith in this device, but I warn you not to trust it too much. You see, we were seemingly in the middle of nowehere, when our GPS started counting down the distance to our final destination. “500m….250m…50m…..0!” It beeped at us as if to say “You’ve arrived!” but we were on some country road, with no obvious indication of where to turn next! Uh….what now? My resourceful husband found his way to the nearby town, got a road map and we found our way old-school.
When we arrived, we were welcomed then told we needed to tweak our attire. Will was in shorts (baring legs), and I was lacking socks (baring feet), both of which are no-no’s. Good thing we were prepared. We also had to hand in our cell phone. We observed the “Lesser” and “Greater Silence” hours in prayer, Bible reading or other tasks (that didn’t involve talking), strolled the beautiful grounds and breathed in the mountain air, participated in the worship services and had good conversations with others there.
From L to R: Our room; The grounds; Will, enjoying our walk; Quaint waterfall; Along our walk; Will and I; One of the buildings
While we were there, the guests were invited to a dedication service of a cow-barn at an adjacent ranch, run by the son of the founder of Jesus Abbey. Will attended, and was encouraged to hear of the various things this sister organization is doing to prepare Korean Christians for the opening of the border to North Korea.
From L to R: Drummers at the ranch; The group praying
All in all I’m glad we went, but being pregnant made our stay VERY difficult for me. The way the place is set up involves a lot of walking outside, but short distances, and then having to remove your shoes to go to the next building, or bathroom, etc. So, with my frequent bathroom trips, I had to walk outside (I forgot to mention it was raining incessantly), take off my shoes in the bathroom, put on sandals, put my shoes back on, then take them off again in my room. That got tiring after the third or fourth bathroom trip within 2 hours. Sleeping on the Korean-style mat is nearly impossible for pregnant me, as well, and by the second night (after a lousy sleep the previous night) I concocted a homemade mattress out of pillows and sheets, which did the trick..mostly.
On our way home we were spontaneous and followed a random sign that told us there was a cave ahead. This was one of the few times that being impulsive paid off. It was a neat tourist site, that involved riding a bus-train up a hill to the entrance of the cave, and the cave itself was a good 30 minute walk through. We all had to put on hard hats (there was a big group), and followed the path down into the depths of the cave, past the stalagmites and stalaktites, funny rock formations that each had names like “Virgin Mary” or “Entrance to Hell”, plus fountains and colourful lights. It was a good side-trip (one that our GPS was very upset about because we strayed from it’s suggested path, and beeped at us in dismay).
From L to R: The Train-bus we rode; Ana excited with the tickets; Cave entrance; Will looking silly in his helmet; Fountain in cave; Rock formation; Walkway in cave; Another rock formation; Yet another rock formation
